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Cultivar/Variety

Last Updated: 5 years ago

A portmanteau of the words “cultivated” and “variety,” a cultivar is a plant variety created or selected intentionally and maintained through cultivation, typically for its desirable characteristics. The term cultivar is not the same as “variety” although the two terms are often used interchangeably. Culivars have very similar genetic material (same genus and species) selected for desirable characteristics that can be maintained by propagation.

Author

James Peth

James Peth, MS, MPH, PhD is an instructor in Food Science and Human Nutrition at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado.